iPhone 4S: Top 10 High Resolution Smartphones

iPhone 4S improved on the iPhone 4's ppi by upping it to 330. it's good for second place, but as mentioned before, if that ppi were stretched out on a four inch screen, it would look amazing. Apple may have decided to stand pat with the 3.5-inch screen simply because of battery concerns. A bigger screen with high ppi will be a battery hog, so keep that in mind with any of these high-res devices. Photo: Reuters

Nearly two years old and still one of the best resolution screens available, iPhone 4 is still one of the most popular smartphones in the U.S. It's $100 on contract with all three major U.S. carriers, another key to its popularity. Perhaps when the iPhone 5 does appear, it will have the battery issues resolved to the point it can have a bit bigger of a screen. Photo: Reuters

This 5-inch screen monster could be right in the sweet-spot for high res devices because of the massive screen size and formidable ppi of 285. It's not yet available in the U.S., but will be here in the near future. It even comes with a stylus for writing on (hence the name). Because it's not released yet, there is no pricing available, unless you want an unlocked version. That will set you back more than $500 like most off contract high end smartphones. Photo: Reuters

Another device that's been out for a while now, the Atrix already has a successor, the Atrix 2. Atrix has the better ppi though, at 275. It's a great device for $100 on AT&T. Farhad Manjoo even endorsed it in a November 2011 New York Times story about the best gadgets for a home office. It's got a large screen, fast processor and the latest version of the Android system. Photo: Reuters

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iPhone 4S has incredibly high screen resolution, so high in fact, one of the top most wanted features of the hoped for iPhone 5 was to have a bigger screen. If you are doing more than just making calls and sending messages with your smartphone, you may already know that screen size is not as important as how sharp the images are. iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 have some of the highest screen resolutions out there, but there is a new king of high-res devices now. The newly released HTC Rezound has a better screen resolution than any device out there. It has more pixels per inch than any smartphone, and when the Galaxy Nexus drops in November, it could match or surpass Rezound.

Rezound is being touted as the musical phone because Dr. Dre's Beats Audio is deeply integrated within the device for superior audio, so it's quite a nice phone. The top 10 highest resolution phones here are measured by the aforementioned ppi, with a higher number the better. It is worth noting that above 300 ppi, the human eye has trouble distinguishing the difference in pixel density. This is also compounded by one's own eye sight acuity and they type of ambient light when viewing the screen. Tell us in the comments if you know a device with excellent resolution regardless of the ppi.